MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

This website skeleton will provide a practiced biological researcher with useful tools for developing and honing skills in programming that can be readily applied to the emerging field of bioinformatics. The document will identify crucial challenges faced by biologists trying to learn programming and provide insight on how to start or improve their learning. Support for learning bioinformatics will be provided to the reader by citing groundbreaking technologies and well known algorithms coming from the field. The reader will also be informed about the growing need to parse larger and larger data sets. Then the focus of the document will shift towards giving the reader the tools they require to introduce themselves to the field of bioinformatics. The reader will be directed to various free programming education modules from code academy, Kahn academy, and pine.fm. Once they have acquainted themselves with these services, they will be guided towards modules that will them apply what they have learned from the programming modules. These resources will consist of a bioinformatics module program from the CBE life sciences program that focuses on direct application of bioinformatics in biological data science and the Rosalind.info group which provides an in-depth introduction to the algorithms that have been applied in bioinformatics.

READER’S PROFILE: I imagine there will be several reader who have attempted to learn how to program but were incapable of learning the material due to a lack of affinity for programming.

READER’S PERSPECTIVE: Look I understand that bioinformatics is important and that it is becoming a growing field, but honestly not everyone has an affinity for this stuff. I have tried several times to learn how to program and have no success. Code academy and Kahn academy have always been around but I’ve still never experienced success with them. I don’t feel like your bringing anything new to the table, at least I have not already seen. I also feel like there are enough programmers as is and that biology is easy enough to get into. Why can’t push this field on the programmers? Why do biologists have to learn it?

B,
"Website skeleton" is a very good term. Did you coin this?

Two ways to address this reluctant reader:

Linking to stats and R work:

First, https://www.datacamp.com/

-- an online course that teaches skills in R and Python, oriented for data scientists, including biologists. This platform offers the first lesson in each course for free, then it's a $30 monthly fee to access everything else (python and R are both included), less than tuition.

Second, do these sources address the fear of coding problem (sorta like math anxiety, I think). If so, include this in your comparative analysis.

Other ways to address coding anxiety? Using project based experiences? This is what I did.